China Still Risks Japan’s Fate Despite Manufacturing Crown
A BYD Co. Fang Cheng Bao Super 9 concept vehicle unveiled during a media event in Shenzhen, China, on April 16. BYD is at the forefront of China’s manufacturing rise, and is expanding into luxury vehicles.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergWith the weeks running down on 2024, Chinese policymakers are already in a position to declare “mission accomplished” on their (almost) decade-long Made in China 2025 project.
Despite headwinds including major tariff hikes by successive US administrations, the worst domestic housing slump in modern times and an increasing fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs, China’s manufacturing sector has gone from strength to strength. Bloomberg Economics calculates it has the biggest goods-trade surplus relative to world GDP since post-World War II America (when most everybody else’s industries had been wrecked.)